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June 30, 2015
From the Marcus Files
There is so much occurring in government right now, and politics is certainly coming into play. It is difficult to pick one subject on which to elaborate but admittedly the lack of sleep might be contributing to my attention deficit disorder. Let’s start with the punchline first. According to a July 6 survey conducted by Rasmussen, only 25% of American likely voters think the country is headed in the right direction. Predictably, Republican and Independent dissatisfaction is much higher than Democrat dissatisfaction. So what is causing the dissatisfaction? The newest unemployment rate figures show a drop to 6.1%, the Dow Jones is toying with the 17,000 mark, the deficit seems to be dropping due to the shutdown that forced austerity measures, and the surplus in the housing market has dropped dramatically. So shouldn’t the electorate be pleased or at least pacified into contentedness? Shouldn’t the right direction/wrong track numbers be better and therefore an asset for incumbents? Take a look at the more prominent headlines. The leading National news stories are about illegal immigrant children flooding the borders, a Veterans Administration that is accused of actually killing our veterans rather than saving and caring for them, a Supreme Court decision on Hobby Lobby that has devolved into a pro-choice/pro-life debate, driver’s licenses and in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, it’s been discovered that the National Security Agency has been spying on American citizens (they are not supposed to do that), and a Mexican government helicopter that flew and fired gun shots in American air space. And that is just national. Here are a few gems from Arizona. Attorney General Tom Horne is fighting an independent investigation into his fundraising practices while hiring his own donors to investigate him with your tax dollars. The investigative report will not be public information. Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal posted online in blogs under different names and wrote blatantly racist comments. The city of Phoenix just raised our water bills and parking fees to cover a 38 million dollar deficit. So now you have an idea of why voters are frustrated and it is not necessarily the economy, although it is certainly a matter of trust. Usually this is a recipe for a tidal wave election where incumbents are shockingly defeated and a wave of new blood is shot into office. I mean House Majority Leader Eric Cantor outspent his opponent 10-1 and still lost his primary. Surely the wave is here, right? However, in the primary elections held post Cantor, incumbents from BOTH parties have overwhelmingly won. Including 23 term Charlie Rangel (D-NY) who was censured by the House of Representatives in 2010 for ethics violations. Don’t ever say the electorate is an easy thing to understand. 07/09/2014
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June 30, 2015
Lesson from the book American Nations
An Opinion Written By Barry Dill Are you worried that all the bickering in America is leading us to ruin? That Americans today are more at odds than ever over basic questions of God and government and taxes and sex? Do you long for the good ol’ days, when Americans were, well, Americans? Well, you can forget that. Americans have never agreed on much of anything, and that’s not about to change. That’s the lesson of American Nations by Colin Woodard, a book that basically rips up the familiar 50-state, red-blue map of the United States and replaces it with a far stranger — and, he argues, truer – political and cultural geography. For hundreds of years, this nation has been known as the United States of America. But according to Woodard, the country is neither united, nor made up of 50 states. Woodward has studied American voting patterns, demographics and public opinion polls going back to the days of the first settlers, and says that his research shows America is really made up of 11 different nations. Courtesy Tufts Magazine Here’s how he breaks down the continent: Yankeedom: Founded by Puritans, residents in Northeastern states and the industrial Midwest tend to be more comfortable with government regulation. They value education and the common good more than other regions. New Netherland: The Netherlands was the most sophisticated society in the Western world when New York was founded, Woodard writes, so it’s no wonder that the region has been a hub of global commerce. It’s also the region most accepting of historically persecuted populations. The Midlands: Stretching from Quaker territory west through Iowa and into more populated areas of the Midwest, the Midlands are “pluralistic and organized around the middle class.” Government intrusion is unwelcome, and ethnic and ideological purity isn’t a priority. Tidewater: The coastal regions in the English colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and Delaware tend to respect authority and value tradition. Once the most powerful American nation, it began to decline during Westward expansion. Greater Appalachia: Extending from West Virginia through the Great Smoky Mountains and into Northwest Texas, the descendants of Irish, English and Scottish settlers value individual liberty. Residents are “intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers.” Deep South: Dixie still traces its roots to the caste system established by masters who tried to duplicate West Indies-style slave society, Woodard writes. The Old South values states’ rights and local control and fights the expansion of federal powers. El Norte: Southwest Texas and the border region is the oldest, and most linguistically different, nation in the Americas. Hard work and self-sufficiency are prized values. The Left Coast: A hybrid, Woodard says, of Appalachian independence and Yankee utopianism loosely defined by the Pacific Ocean on one side and coastal mountain ranges like the Cascades and the Sierra Nevadas on the other. The independence and innovation required of early explorers continues to manifest in places like Silicon Valley and the tech companies around Seattle. The Far West: The Great Plains and the Mountain West were built by industry, made necessary by harsh, sometimes inhospitable climates. Far […]
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June 30, 2015
2013 An Unlucky Number
An Opinion Written By Kurt Davis I have never been a fan of the number 13. Not because of any superstition (I am not a superstitious person), but because in the political calendar, 13 has repeatedly been a series of bad years for our nation and the body politic. For example, in 1813 the United States was at war with England for a second time and had lost a significant battle that allowed the Brits to capture Fort Niagara Falls and then burn much of Buffalo to the ground. It was a reversal of American success that year and paved the way for the attacks on Washington D.C. where our freedom was precariously at risk once again to the English Monarchy. In 1913, the 16th Amendment is ratified and the Federal Government begins its massive growth spurt that forever changes the lives of Americans by allowing the fruits of our labor to be taxed through implementation of the income tax. The nation’s first income tax is flat and at a rate of 1%. What would we give to have those days back? In another move to “reform” our governance, the 17th Amendment was ratified. From then on, voter’s directly elect their U.S. Senators versus a system established by our Founders to balance the populist impulses of voters by having state legislature’s approve statesmen and women to serve as the counter balance to the “people’s house.” Runaway populism takes off in America and the beginning of the end of statesmanship marches forward…it is an issue we still grapple with today. Just look at the approval ratings of Congress to see what has happened since 1913. That brings us to 2013. A year our nation remained at war in faraway lands, with almost no one paying attention to the needless losses, except for the families of those who selflessly serve all of us. 2013 was also the year when the federal government launched a government run health care system (ObamaCare) designed to be a “stalking horse” for a single payer system which will effectively take over 18% of our nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The failed launch of ObamaCare included the unveiling of a $400 million dollar website that crashed and burned, giving us a glimpse into what will happen to the world’s finest healthcare system, once the bureaucracy has its full death grip on it. And in 2013, the US Congress passed the least amount of legislation in our nation’s history, because a weak Administration, a bloated and broke bureaucracy, coupled with the full impact of regionally based populism has become the unelected ruler of our national government. Yet, the most “Unlucky 13” event was our nation’s willingness to sit by and trade “freedom for security.” In 2013, we watched the radical expansion of government spying and monitoring tactics that would have even made Joseph Stalin blush. From phone call listening, email reading, video game monitoring to drones buzzing the skies monitoring the conversations and interactions of ordinary Americans and even our allies’ leaders…we as Americans in 2013 became numb to a government that is testing, piercing and obliterating our constitutional […]
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June 30, 2015
Where is the Political Middle?
An Opinion Written By Marcus Dell’Artino One of our pollsters released a long slide deck to the public recently, but it is one slide that has been making the rounds on the internet. The slide looks historically at the ideological leanings of the members of the U.S. Congress based upon their ratings from National Journal Vote Rankings. There it is in red, white and blue, the answers to all your questions. Why can’t Congress get anything done? Why does the Country seem so ideologically divided? Where is the political middle? The days of leaders like Minority Leader Bob Michael, Speaker Tip O’Neil and Ronald Reagan are long gone and we are left with a “my way or the highway” mentality on BOTH sides of the aisle. So what caused it? Was it a lack of candidates? Lack of voter participation? Redistricting of congressional districts? Or everyone’s favorite fall guy, “special interests”? And the answer is all of the above. You can’t blame too many rational people for not running for public office anymore. Look at what happens the second they think about running for office. The lure of serving in the public interest for short term is outweighed by the family needs. The mudslinging, endless hours, and zero private life for you or your family leave a vacuum filled by those with endless egos convinced nobody is going to know about their late night trysts. The United States has never had the greatest voter turnout compared to other democracies but has shown a small comeback in recent elections. But most scientists are studying Presidential election years. It is the non-presidential years we should be concerned about. But both of those pale in comparison to primary elections when each party picks their candidate. Considering Arizona was doing well in the last primary elections at only about 30% voter turnout. Redistricting and campaign finance changes generally fall into the same category. The more “great idea” changes you add, the worse it gets. The system is somewhat like mother nature. The more you tinker with it, the worse it may become. For instance, before “redistricting commissions” state representatives and senators would go down into a basement room and hash out district lines between themselves. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it did build relationships, some trust, and some bipartisanship. After all, if you are going to move 500 republican voters into a moderately democrat district, there has to be some give and take, right? Special interests? Everyone is part of them, they just don’t know it. If you drink Coke or Pepsi you are funding the National Beverage Association. I can go on with a 100 of these, but the most troubling has become the 24 hour news cycle and social media. The constant push to get out new and controversial topics has caused politicians and consultants to push the extremes for outlandish headlines. Remember balloon boy whose parents convinced the world their son flew away in a balloon only to later admit they made the whole story up for media attention? We don’t have to look far to find a political example. […]
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